Nightmare In Wardington City
by Darkhydra
Summary: One particularly stormy night, a certain Alice decides to visit her friends, however, when she doesn't turn up, and a mystery spirit takes possession of Dan to get the Brawler's help, not everything exactly... goes to plan... Rated T for violence...
1. The Beginning

A.N: I don't own Bakugan! If I did... well, let's not go there now...  
Enjoy!

1. The Beginning

It was dark. Rain lashed down into the soaking streets of Wardington City, and onto a girl named Alice. She shivered, and flicked a damp lock of orange hair off her face, wishing she had thought ahead and worn something less summery than her usual yellow dress. Her case, which she was dragging behind her, and had been since she'd left the airport, snagged on a rut in the pvement, and she hit the ground. Hard. Groaning, she forced herself shakily onto all fours, assessing the damage. Alice hurt, but there was nothing more wrong than that. "Up you get..." Suddenly, a voice sounded, its owner just outside her field of vision, but the voice was familiar all the same. "Masquerade?" Alice whipped her head around to catch sight of even a glimpse, but whatever she had heard, he was nowhere to be seen, not even as a flash of white in the distance. Alice sighed, she missed Masquerade. She didn't miss being him, and doing all those dreadful things, even though her friends were convinced it was not her fault, but she did miss having company on dark nights like this one. She was sure she had no feelings for him, but even so, her heart sank in dissapointment.

A shadow moved in the darkness, catching Alice's eye, and she turned towards it. "Masquerade?" However, she did not get long to look, as somebody from behind her held a dirty cloth to her face. It smelt so strange, and she found herself... falling... as...leep...

The men bundled the unconcious girl into a large black sack, composed of a thin plastic, held between the both of them. As they stuffed her into the back of a large, official-looking armored car, one of the men caught a glimpse of something tattered and white in the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look, nothing was there. Strange. He shivered, a chill running down his spine.  
"Can we get out of here now?" he whimpered to his companion, trying to keep the waver from his voice.  
"Why? Are you scared?" the other man, a large, brutishly build kind of man, mocked, "We got what they wanted, so yeah, we can go now."  
The smaller man breathed a sigh of relief, and clambered into the driving seat of the truck, strapped himself in, and waited for his companion, who joined him in the truck a little while later, after securing Alice in the back of the vehicle.

Masquerade, his form flickering and wisping away on the wind like a ghost, watched the events take place from a building with utter disgust. How dare these men take Alice! How dare they touch her with their unclean hands! His calm demeanour masked the urge to scream into the night, and chase the men, but he had no hope of doing that himself. His energy was running low, and so his time in the real world was running out also. Masquerade walked slowly from the ledge of the building he was standing on, and walked away, fading from view as he did so. It seemed that it was high time he caught up with the brawlers...

Meanwhile, the brawlers, gathered in Marucho's mansion, were eagerly awaiting Alice's arrival, but they were starting to get worried, and, now well past midnight, quite tired too. Shun sat in the shadows, as always, just a little way from the group, watching with calm eyes. Dan, who had eaten quite a lot of the food that Marucho had provided, was snoring gently, his head resting on Runo's shoulder, who pretended to be annoyed, but secretly was quite pleased. Julie was re-applying her makeup. Again. Marucho himself was anxiously checking flight delays on a laptop, trying to find a logical reason why Alice was not yet with them, but was so far coming up with nothing. He finally shut his computer with a loud snap, attracting all but Dan's attention, and lay back with a frustrated sigh. "She should be here... There's no reason why not... No traffic, no flight delays... Nothing!" Julie looked up from her makeup, "Cheer up Marucho! She'll be here soon!"  
Runo nodded in agreement, "Yeah! Alice is tough! Nothing's happened to her!"  
"I think we should all try and get some sleep..." Shun's calm, and as always, practical voice was heard quietly from the shadows, "Alice'll understand if everyone's asleep, I'm sure."  
Marucho tucked his computer under his arm. "Indeed. I can have Kato bring in some beds if anyone wants one."

Suddenly, the sleepy atmosphere was shattered by Dan's shout: "ALICE!" He was still asleep, but now grasped at something invisible before him, nearly punching Runo in the mouth as he did so. "Dan...?" She muttered, moving away a little, as to not have him punch her. Dan's eyes flickered, then opened wide, but instead of his usual firey brown, they were a shocking, icey blue. He stood up, awkwardly, as if somebody was pulling his body around on strings like a puppet. "Brawlers..." His voice sounded strange, as if somebody were trying to change its sound to match theirs, "Save Alice..."  
Runo, her hand held up halfway to her mouth, gasped at him: "Who are you? What are you doing with Dan? What about Alice?" Her questions seemed to irritate whoever was using Dan's body, as they glared coldly at her, and continued, "Some men took her. Bad men. In a truck. With a...White...Dragon..."  
"But...But we beat Naga!" Julie squealed, dropping some eyeshadow on the carpet. Dan's lips quirked upwards into a smirk, "Apparently... Not..." Shun was about to ask his own question, but the ice-blue eyes rolled back into Dan's head suddenly, he made a strangled sound, and collapsed, unconcious. The brawlers rushed over to him, obviously concernerned, but he was still snoring away, as if nothing at all had happened.

Marucho was the first to look up. "What's our first move?" His voice concealed a tiny tremor. These events had shaken him, to say the very least. At this, everyone was silent for what seemed the longest time, before Shun spoke up, ever practical, as always: "We should get some rest. That's our first move." This suggestion was deemed as sensible, and, fearing the incident with Dan could occur once more, the brawlers settled on sofas, tables, chairs and even the wide windowsill, comfortably wide, next to thick, near bullet-proof glass.

Soon, the rhythmic sounds of sleeping were the only noises in the room, and of course, no-one noticed Dan's hands twitching, as if trying to remove something from his face...

A.N: Review now and you'll recieve a free cookie!


	2. The Rescue

AN: BAKUGAN = NOT MINE!

2. The Rescue As he crawled stealthily down a ventilation pipe, peering out at people in white coats, scurrying about like mice, and important looking business people who strutted among them like peacocks, even though they probably had no idea what the various contraptions around the room did, Shun wondered how they had coerced him into doing this. It had to be illegal -Sneaking into a high security building via the ventilation system, but then again, he'd done a significant amount of things that could be considered as illegal when the bakugan were around, so he shrugged this off. Skyress would have been useful in this situation however - she could have undone a window, or checked to see if anyone was coming. Shun let out a muffled sigh, he would have to make do on his own - Skyress wasn't here.

His feet touched down noiselessly in the basement of the building, and the end of the shaft he had been crawling down. The door was firmly locked, and as he walked around the room, the dust he kicked up meant it probably hadn't been used for an age. There was a small window however, through which he could see Marucho's feet. Shun tapped the window calmly, two times, succeeding in getting the small blonde s attention, if only by making him jump. Marucho crouched down; looking around to make sure nobody was looking whilst Shun let him in.

Marucho landed in the dusty room with a thud, and a sneeze. Shun clapped his hands around the blonde s head, and listened for any approaching security. When there were no sounds that would indicate a coming threat, the ninja dropped his hands to his sides, and the blond sniffed, grateful that the sneezing had been stopped, even by an unorthodox method. He brought out a small laptop from under his arm, the same one from the last night, in fact, and brought up a radar tracking program. Shun peered at it, with a concerned look, "Are you sure this is the right building?"  
Marucho gave a small huff, "Yes Shun, this is the right building. I told you, as long as she's wearing her bakupod-"  
Shun cut him off, "What if this is a trap, or she dropped it?"  
"Then we'll just have to take that chance, won't we?" Marucho closed the computer with a click, "This isn't like you, Shun, what's the matter?"  
"I'm just... Worried about Alice..." Shun started towards the ventilation shaft, "Let's get going."

In the meantime, Alice woke up, feeling her surroundings with blurry vision. Why was she so cramped? Had she rolled under her bed in the night? No... no... She was in a cage. The memories all came flooding back to her - The men, Masquerade, the kidnapping, all of it. Her eyes welled up, and she began sobbing quietly. What were they going to do with her? Somebody aimed a vicious kick at the cage, making a loud noise, and tipping it over.  
"Quiet in there!"  
Alice lay there, stunned and miserable, for a long while, before she took a look at her surroundings. Four bare white walls, a greyish ceiling, dusty looking white carpet, and people dressed in white coats running about. She had entered a world of monochrome, with the only real colour being the chemicals in the various flasks around the room, and her pale yellow dress. Sitting up in her cage, she wondered if Masquerade had a hand in all this, after all, it did seem as if he had distracted her so those men could catch her, however, if he did, then why help her up? It could have been anyone doing that, of course, but she doubted even Shun could move out of sight that quickly. Resting her head on her knees, Alice closed her aching eyes, and fell once more into the realm of dreams.

Marucho and Shun were now out of the ventilation shaft, as Marucho had fallen on Shun several times, and they were unlikely to get anywhere with the rescue attempt if the spent hours climbing up a pipe, so they opted to use the stairs - A risky, but quicker method. Shun muttered words of the plan through his green bakupod to Dan, who waited just outside, whilst Marucho did the same with Runo. If they were going to rescue Alice, their plan needed careful co-ordination and co-operation. They reached the top of the stairs, and whilst Shun peered down the plush white interior of a corridor, Marucho checked the signal that Alice's bakupod was giving out. He really, really hoped that Shun was wrong, and she still had it on her.

Having decided that the corridor was safe, Shun grabbed Marucho, and they headed down it,  
in the direction that the blond kid with the computer said was the best course to take. As Shun ran, he thought about how easy it had been to get this far. Raucous voices were heard in a large room at the end of the corridor however - Possibly the guard room. And by the sounds of the merry-making inside, possibly the reason why they'd got there so easily. Shun and Marucho dropped into crawling positions, and Shun again spoke to Dan, positioning him outside for the distraction he and Marucho needed to get through.

There was a thump of something hitting the window, and Shun subconsciously held his breath, waiting for the people inside to rush over to the window. Dan, it seemed, had no disappointed with his flour bombs, at least, but whether they worked was an entirely different story... There was some shouting, and the sound of several feet running over to the window, and then more thumps. The ninja and the small blond started off past the room, and around a kink in the corridor, where they ran straight into possibly the largest security man that either of them had ever seen. Shun kicked away from the man's grasp, however, he still had Marucho, and Shun, though he felt as if he were betraying Marucho somehow, took a last, lingering look at the blond, and ducked into a ventilation shaft, clambering into it so far that the security guard would have no hope of following. He had to rescue Alice. That was imperative. Shun was sure...No, he hoped Marucho would understand.

Meanwhile, after Marucho had been unceremoniously dumped outside the building, and given a stern scolding on sneaking into offices, he met up with Dan and the other brawlers, who had mixed reactions about seeing him, since it meant that he was okay, but it also meant Shun was now alone in enemy territory, and the plan had gone terribly wrong. Dan growled and threw a small stone, striking a road sign with a sharp clang. Muttering something unintelligible, he stormed off, angry at Shun for abandoning Marucho, angry with Marucho for getting caught, and most of all, angry at himself for not being more helpful. "If Drago were here..." He began, feeling miserable at his mention of his departed friend, and the helplessness he felt without him.

Julie watched from a distance, wanting to say something to try to cheer Dan up, but knowing that nothing would really help. She knew what he felt - The same pain was locked up inside her. Inside all of those who had bakugan, really. Her eyes became a little watery as she thought of Gorem, but she wiped them away. Julie was determined to be strong, if only as a facade to hide the pain. She eventually turned back to the remaining brawlers. "So what do we do now?"  
Marucho was the first to speak, and as usual, he was trying to apply logic: "The best thing we can do now is hope that Shun succeeds in finding Alice, I think." He looked up as there was a loud sound - Dan punching a metal road sign. He sighed, and then continued, "As a ninja, he is best suited for this kind of rescue."  
Julie tilted her head to one side, and frowned, "So we just leave Shun to it? Really?"  
Marucho shrugged, "Logically speaking." Runo inched over to Julie, in order to speak with her whilst watching the small blond attempt to comfort Dan, "I don't think we should just sit here y'know?"  
Julie replied, whispering behind a hand, "I know, but what can we do? It's not like Tigrerra and Gorem are here to help."  
Runo rolled her eyes, "Then we'll just have to figure something out ourselves, won't we!" She grabbed Julie's arm, and dragged her off, unnoticed by Marucho and Dan, who had sat on the grass, both thouroughly depressed, thinking about their bakugan.

Masquerade however, did notice the girls sidling off, and suppressed an irritated growl. They were never going to rescue Alice this way. But what could he do? He had very little influence on the human realm without a body - As a spirit, not only could very few people see him, but he couldn't talk to all but a very few people, and had no means to pick anything up. He began pacing slowly, as he usually did when he thought, hands linked together behind his back, until an idea came to him. Masquerade grinned, and walked away from the building slowly, planning his plan. 


	3. One for Sorrow

AN: Don't own Bakugan. And as always, R&R!

3. One for Sorrow

Shun crawled through the cold metal passages of the ventilation network in endless circles for an endless amount of time, hopelessly lost. Though he tried to remain calm and collected, the tight space and the prospect of never finding Alice was beginning to make him panic. Shun screwed his eyes up, attempting to relax his tensed muscles, and concentrate on Alice's rescue. He was, for once, so engrossed with trying to calm himself down, he didn't notice the sound of tiny footsteps getting louder and louder. Not until the bird was nearly touching him did the ninja notice.

A magpie stood in front of Shun.

A magpie with cold, blue eyes.

The bird stared at the ninja for what seemed an age for both parties, then, simply turned around, and headed back in the direction in which it had come, however, when it was around halfway, it stopped, and looked back at Shun, who had remained still throughout the encounter - paralysed with the oddity of the situation. This didn't please the bird, apparently, since it fixed Shun with an icy eye, and let out a shriek that sounded like a mangled attempt at a word. Only when the ninja moved in the bird's direction, did it continue walking. Shun was confused at this - He had only encountered one bird that would willingly brave the dark, echoing confines of the ventilation systems of buildings, and that had been Skyress, when Alice had dropped a favourite necklace into it. And stranger still, this bird seemed to be leading him someplace, though he could only guess where to. Futile though it may have been, the ninja hoped he was being led to Alice.

For what seemed to be hours, Shun and the magpie travelled through mile after mile of steel shafts, with the only vaguely adrenaline-pumping moment when the bird had caught the attention of security personnel, and all they had done was bang on the shaft and shout, though this didn't seem to faze the magpie, whohad waited for them to stop, and then merely moved on, Shun following behind like a duckling after his mother.

As he crawled, Shun thought about the other brawlers. Surely they had not braved the building again? He certainly hoped not - They really didn't need to be making a big fuss, especially if it got the police involved. He didn't doubt their ability to lie their way out of situations, after all, they had done it plenty of times before, but this time the enemy wasn't a giant dragon from a different dimension. For all they knew, they could be up against the most powerful people in the world, and they didn't have the bakugan to back them up. They were just a bunch of children now. Children with a history perhaps, children who had some standing, at least. But children they were, and children are much easier to silence than adults...

Shun was broken from his reverie by the harsh shrieking of his guide, followed by a swift peck to the face when he failed to pay attention in time. "Ouch! What?" He hissed at the bird, holding a hand up to the cut on his cheek. The bird flicked its tail impatiently, and tapped a claw on the grating it was standing on. Shun peered through the bars, and saw a grey room below, with four grey walls, off-white carpet, and tables filled with chemicals all around. Shun frowned. What was so special about this room? He studied the scene below harder, and made out the corner of something, just hidden under a table. A cage? Yes, a cube-ish thing made of metal. Definitely a cage. And in the cage? He could make out some sort of pale appendages within the confines of the cage. Fingers? Looked like it. Shun didn't hesitate. Ripping the grate out of the shaft with a mad surge of strength, Shun leapt down beside the cage, and fiddled with the lock, then pulled the contents of the cage up and into his arms. A girl with a yellow dress, like she was draped in a shaft of sun. A girl with orange hair, like soothing waves of auburn. Alice.

Shun looked up. There appeared to be no-one around, asides from Alice, and the bird. Speaking of which, the bird looked slightly limp. Almost as if it were dead? But surely that was impossible? Shun told himself, firmly, that there must be some other explanation, because the magpie had been alive and well just seconds before. He looked up, and saw his own eyes staring back at him, reflected in a blue, Perspex mask. "Masquerade."  
The blonde smiled, "Pleased to see you too Shun, I see you found Alice?"  
Shun did not return the smile, "What do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?"  
"Never did trust me, did you?" Masquerade's smile faded into his usual expressionless state, "But you followed that bird there... Tell me, did you really think that a mere animal would have the good grace to help you rescue Alice? Were you really that foolish?" He laughed, a cold sound that stung Shun's ears as if they had been chapped by a winter breeze.  
Shun looked at the floor for a while, then looked back at Masquerade, who was becoming a little see-through, for reasons the ninja could only guess at. "So it was you possessing the magpie? What about Dan? Him too?"  
Masquerade's smile returned, "Ah, that's the Shun I knew. Always the smart one." "Why? What's the point?" Shun could hear faint footsteps now, he should make this quick.  
The masked blonde shook his head slowly, "Shun... Shun... Shun, surely you should have known - You are not the only one who cares about Alice."  
Shun didn't reply, but made his way quickly to the door of the room, wrenched it open, and broke into a run down the hallway. Masquerade followed - He had heard the footsteps too, but unlike Shun, he wasn't worried in the least. It wasn't like Alice's kidnappers could do much with a spirit.

Shun clattered down stairs and sprinted down hallways, much of his natural speed and agility lost with carrying Alice. He burst through another well polished door, and was making his way across the reception area of the building, on the ground floor, when he saw black shapes edging his vision. A quick glance sideways revealed them to be thick-bodied security types, yammering away on radios and staring at him with mean, deep-set eyes. Throwing caution to the wind, Shun made a last burst of speed, causing his muscles to scream out in agony, and a stumble that could have got Alice and himself captured, if the receptionist - A smart looking brunette, with blue eyes and red-rimmed glasses, had not began screaming in pain, coughing up blood, then proceeded to slump down on her desk. Now more than a little scared, Shun clawed his way back onto his painful feet, and hauled Alice out of the building, the screaming ringing in his ears. It appeared he had misjudged his old friend, Masquerade. It looked like he was a lot scarier than he had previously thought.

Alice opened her eyes to see the open sky, and Shun, who was sweating and looked as if he was going to drop dead from sheer exhaustion.  
"Shun?" She whispered, not wanting to make him jump. He gazed down at her, wishing he wasn't so damn tired so he could enjoy his perfect moment properly - Alice, in his arms, with no-one else around. He set her down on a wooden bench, and then sat next to her. For a moment, no words passed between them, until Alice whispered again: "Thank you, Shun."

Meanwhile, back in the building that had once hidden Alice within its murky depths, now held a certain masked spirit captive. The trap hadn't been particularly complex either - They had cast some sort of circle with runes in the floor, under the carpet, and when he stepped on it to leave the building, it had caught him like a tiger in a tiger trap. He paced, walking in slow circles, glancing at the woman in the room every so often - He guessed she was the one who wanted him captive, with the way her eyes looked hungrily at him, the way a dog does a bone. She had been there when they moved him. It had been planned for some time, apparently, since the section of floor that trapped him had been easily removed, and carried to a room, also littered with graffiti like runes. Masquerade glared at the woman, and spat at her, a snarl half-hidden under his mask. The woman continued gazing unflinchingly at him, even as he planned a hopefully gory downfall for her. "Masquerade."  
The same 'greeting' that Shun had delivered stopped Masquerade in his tracks. "What?" He glared at her, fuming.  
"I expect you're wondering why you're here?" The woman's voice was calm. She was in control, and loving every second of it.  
The masked blonde laughed bitterly, "Why don't you indulge me? I can see you're just dying to."  
The woman turned sharply on her smart black heels, and walked to the door, "You're going to help us save the world Masquerade."  
He resumed his pacing. "Save the world? How pathetic." Masquerade slowly cracked a grin, "Now why would I want to do that?"


	4. Bullets & Old Bosses

Disclaimer: Don't own Bakugan. Period.

4. Bullets & Old Bosses

Masquerade sat in the room that had become his cage, finding himself biting back curses aimed at himself - For his foolishness, for his naivity. He should have known that accursed woman didn't need or want Alice, after all, hadn't he endured hours of watching helplessly as Alice got kicked around, abused, and generally roughed up. If they had wanted her, they wouldn't have done that at all - No sense in damaging the goods. They probably thought that her pain would make him more likely to fall for their trap. And it had worked, obviously. Masquerade made a single, barking laugh. Ha! Well, he wasn't falling for that again.

Eventually, he tired of sitting around, and began pacing slowly from one end of the space to the other, hands linked loosely behind his back, and a grim smile of concentration upon his face. He knew he needed a plan, and needed one fast. Before the had came back to enact whatever plan she had for him to 'Save the world'. As far as Masquerade reckoned, as long as a certain white dragon from another dimension stayed dead, this world was hardly in a lot of trouble. Although perhaps it would have been better for Naga to have won - Alice would have never been kidnapped, especially whist she was still his host, and by extension, the daft circle that had trapped him here would have never been drawn. Masquerade frowned - What was he thinking? No good would have come if Naga had won. He would have wrecked both Vestrioa and Earth. He shook his head to clear the thoughts. No good would come of dwelling on ancient history now.

His attention was attracted to the door of the room, as the scraping of bolt-locks being undone echoed throughout the room. Shortly after that, there was a small click, and the door swung wide open. The woman (He had no interest in her actual name, so 'the woman' had become a nickname for her) was accompanied by two burly men, equipped with heavy looking rifles. The woman herself produced a small handgun, and turned to scrub out the runes around the door, and then turned to Masquerade.  
"Don't even think about running away, the bullets in these guns are... special."  
Masquerade didn't know what made them so special, but decided it probably wasn't prudent to try and run off, not that he knew if he even could run off...

They were walking down a long, long corridor for a long time. It wasnt anything special - Just cold, clinical and white, with a few rooms branching off, but the doors had no glass in them, so Masquerade didnt know what was inside them. However, he did see the interior of the room at the very end of the corridor. It was a pretty massive room, the walls lined with computers, and thick cables on the floor, mostly connected to a large, rectangular tank, with a sort of vague, misty shape inside. It looked a little like some sort of bird, ora bat, or something. Nevertheless, Masquerade was getting a bad feeling from it. He was ushered into one of two cylinders, connected to the tank by tubes coming from the base of them, and from tubes connected to the top of the cylinder, and clipped securely to the ceiling.

Masquerade immediately attempted moving through the transparent tube, however, unlike most materials, the tube was very solid, and Masquerade found himself thouroughly trapped inside. He glanced to the other tube. Inside was the spirit of a young girl, trapped, like himself, however, unlike him, she looked scared out of her wits, weak, and crumpled at the bottom of the tube. Masquerade took a sharp breath. What was happening here?

He had no more time to ponder this, however, as some attendant flipped a switch, and an awful feeling swept over Masquerade. The girl in the other tube obviously felt it too, as her mouth opened in a silent scream, as she beat on the sides of her prison. Large pieces of his body began to drift upwards, looking like long ribbons of smoke. He watched the side of his thumb in amazement as it dissolved.

Suddenly, a great surge of anger washed over the spirit. He was not going to die like this! It was pathetic! Trapped, and fed to some dragony-bird thing. He was Masquerade, and he was far too cool to cease existing quite yet!

He pressed his hands to the side of the cylinder, and pushed outwards on it, his fury lending him a mad surge of strength, until he was rewarded with a small cracking sound, and then the cacaphony of smashing glass. Upon seeing this, and the furious spirit that emerged, most of the humans in the room scattered, then rushed for the exit, like the bunch of cowards they were (Even with 'special' guns, they still wouldn't fight him!). Masquerade paid no mind to this, instead smashing open the other cylinder, containing the girl's spirit.

However, when he touched her, intending to pull her out, her body began losing its form, as it had during the abandoned procedure, but instead of drifting up to the top of the tube, she flowed into Masquerade. He pulled his hand back, too late, as if the girl had been some sort of poisonous animal. "What the...?" Masquerade muttered, confused at what had just occured, annoyed at his own inability to save others on his own, yet also darkly pleased. Eventually, he shrugged off the feelings, remembering there was something else in the room he could try his new power on.

Masquerade walked, seemingly calmly, towards the large tank at the rear of the room, that contained what was now unmistakeably a dragon - A white dragon, to be more specific. That explained the feeling of dread he had gotten when he first laid eyes on it. It had to be Naga. From the vaguely tattered wings, to the misty cleft muzzle, there was no mistaking it - The woman had been trying to revive Naga. Masquerade began to pace the length of Naga's tank. What to do? He doubted he could break the glass again - He didn't really feel angry anymore - Just numb, and he had no idea if he could repeat what he did to the girl with his ex-boss...

After some time, Masquerade's attention shifted to a black shape in the corner of his vision. He made his way over to it. The black thing turned out to be a handgun. Did this have the special qualities his captor had been bragging about? Masquerade's lips quirked up in a slight smirk. Really, there was only one way to find out. He picked up the gun, feeling upbeat at the fact he could actually pick things up now. He had no idea why, but he had a feeling that might have had something to do with the girl he... absorbed... In any case, he pressed the gun to his palm, and pulled the trigger.

There was a bang, followed by an extrodinary amount of pain. Masquerade lifted his injured hand to inspect it - The bullet had made a lovely clean hole, and though it could have possibly been the worst pain he had ever been in, it proved the bullets worked, and, better than that, he had proved it without freeing possibly the worst boss in existence. Masquerade pointed the firearm at Naga's misty head, and fired off several bullets at him, smashing a large hole in the tank, and puncturing the dragon's white head like a balloon. Unfortunately, the wounds didn't seem to be particularly fatal, as Naga decided that having an ex-henchman shoot him in the head was a good reason to spit fire into the room, and though it affected nothing in the room, Masquerade could feel the intense heat pushing him away from the dragon.

Shooting in Naga's direction some more, Masquerade swore to himself, watching Naga move out from his tank, and through the ghost-fire, towards him. The bullets were really not doing what he hoped they'd do - The things made holes, and caused pain, but that was really about it, and this, added to the fact that Naga seemed to be regenerating quickly, made Masquerade's situation seem more and more hopeless. The white dragon was nearly on top of him, so Masquerade aimed to hit his square in the eye, but, unfortunately, the gun merely clicked when he pulled the trigger - Out of bullets. He laughed nervously. "Surely we can talk about this?"  
Naga said nothing, however, his tail whipped around, and caught Masquerade hard in the side, flinging him like a rag-doll across the room.  
"Come on, Naga! Be reasonable!" Masquerade knew his grovelling would get him nowhere, but by this time, he couldn't really stop himself.

Naga again, ignored him, however, instead of abusing his ex-employee some more, he opened his jaws, and began to breathe in Masquerade, absorbing him, as he had tried to do with the Silent Core, once upon a time. At first, this seemed to go without a hitch, and Naga spread his wings in preparation of flight. However, before he could, his body began decomposing - Starting with his tail and his wings, his once magnificent body crumbled away as if it was rotten wood, and like a phoenix from the ashes, from Naga's corpse, came Masquerade.

He was changed too - His normally pristine white trench-coat was tattered and shredded, as Naga's wings had once been, and the fingers on his right hand were twisted into cruel, black, talons. Masquerade grinned, showing off viciously pointed teeth. He wasn't sure what had happened, but his escape from Naga had certainly given him a wicked power-up. And now, he just had to figure out how to use it...  



End file.
